The Clinical Epidemiology and Data Management Core supports projects utilizing clinical data or patient samples. The Core promotes interactions between investigators, providing the framework for a collaborative approach to answering clinically relevant questions about ALI/ARDS. Under the supervision of investigators, research nurses identify patients with ALI/ARDS or at risk for development of ALI/ARDS, enroll patients in bronchoalveolar lavage or other studies, and assist physician investigators with specimen collection. The data management team collects and enters patient data into the project database and performs statistical analyses requested by investigators. In addition, the Core provides statistical epidemiological and health services consultation to investigators including advice on study design, statistical power, construction of research hypotheses, data analysis, and interpretation of data. The Core team will build on fourteen years of experiences and existing screening and data abstraction protocols to expand the study population beyond Harborview Medical Center.